Sympathy for the doctrine

[A]n examination of the application of blasphemy laws indicates that they typically give rise to the violation, not the protection, of fundamental human rights.

…

By definition, these laws, which are designed to protect religious institutions, doctrines, figures, and concepts—in other words, nonhuman entities and ideas—from insult or offense, impose undue restrictions on freedom of expression.

Precisely. Institutions (including corporations), doctrines, figures and concepts do not need protection from insult or offense, and they cannot be given such protection without restricting freedom of expression. Since they do not need the protection, it is a bad and stupid idea to restrict freedom of expression in order to give it to them. Institutions, doctrines, figures, and concepts are just the sorts of things that people need to be able to discuss freely in order to choose among them. A doctrine that can’t be dissed is a doctrine that has way too much power.

I recently read a comment from David Quinn, the Irish version of Bill Donohue, where he gave his verdict on the recent Irish Blasphemy law. Quinn is a notorious anti-atheist bigot (you might have seen his recent “no atheists in foxholes ” piece about God saving the Chilean miners) and yet his opinion on the blasphemy legislation mirrored my own. Basically he said the only push from religious groups for blasphemy laws is coming from fundamentalistic Islam and the law has more to do with protecting Irish trade from the possibility of an Islamic boycott in the eventuality of a situation similar to the Danish cartoons. In other words it is the erosion of the right of free speech in the interest of protecting the profits of big business.

Of all the idiotic laws devised by our species, those on blasphemy are the most flagrantly boneheaded. They’re little more than an intellectual form of Prohibition, and are radically antithetical to what philosopher A.C. Grayling labeled “the fundamental civil liberty,” free speech.

Amusing anecdote: my father was partly responsible for eradicating the blasphemy laws from the UK, which were still in place until very recently indeed. He takes great pleasure in telling people the pivotal role he played, as a civil servant, in getting rid of that outdated and unnecessary law.